Moot Thoughts & Musings

Thanks for that link! It was terrific! AJ loved picking out the animal signs (he loved this book when he was little) and I had a few questions about ASL while we were watching it and we're wondering if you can help us. Why are some words spelled out sometimes and acted out at others? We noticed this with "cows" which seem to have a sign most of the time except when they're signing the letters when it's spelled out. Is this the decision of the signer for emphasis or is there some kind of protocol that governs it? Also, are there verb tenses and if so, how are they signed differently? And finally, AJ was wondering if the sign for the word "cried," as used here to mean "shouted," is the same as the sign for the other kind of cried, the one where you're actually crying. I hope you don't mind all the questions. AJ's been very interested in ASL lately and I don't know much about it myself. If you can steer us to any good books to help us, we'd also appreciate it! Thanks!

Oh that was such a fun story! Loved it! Thanks for sharing!

~ LaRonda

Harriet, I can answer your questions since I'm an ASL teacher. ;) First, the storyteller fingerspelled "The Cows" because it shows that it's a signature of the cows rather than referring to the cows as a noun. Fingerspelling the signature does give a little more emphasis. Does that make sense? Story titles are also fingerspelled in whole and then an ASL translation of the titles is offered. This shows respect for the English language and teaches young children the basics of English through ASL.

As for verb tenses, yes, we have past, present and future verbs but the tenses tend to be separate from the verb. For example, in English, you would say "I went to the store" but in ASL, it would be: STORE I FINISH GO. ASL word order is usually subject-object-verb.

ASL sometimes has one sign which can mean many English words, depending on the context and it's the same the other way around-for one English word, there may be many ASL signs. In the case of "cry," the sign for "cry out" (shouting) is actually different from "crying" (tears).

As for books, I have not found general books that show correct grammar structures when using ASL. Most books are in a dictionary format which does not show the correct way of structuring ASL sentences. Curriculum books are great for that but those tend to be used in the classroom. That's actually the best place to learn ASL-in a classroom environment. But if it's books you would like, check out www.dawnsignpress.com and harriscomm.com (be careful, this site also sells English Sign Language stuff which is not an actual language). Good luck! :-)

(thanks, Keri, I was hoping someone would come to my rescue) :D

Another (unlikely, but great!) place to find a quick rundown of ASL grammar is the newest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. They had a great blurb about ASL that I saw on the online edition (which you can get for a month for free).

If AJ is interested in some ASL, he might also find the Signing Time DVDs a lot of fun (signingtime.com). You can often find some at the library or sometimes it gets broadcast on local PBS stations. They are just vocabulary, not grammar.

Thanks so much, Keri and Jeannette! All very interesting. I find the way different languages handle the sense of action in time fascinating. Our library doesn't have Signing Time, alas, but we may try to pick some up elsewhere. Our library does have a couple of bilingual early readers that we've had out of the library a couple of times. One was an Anansi story, another a Native American legend, but they looked like they might be part of a bigger series. On the lefthand page, the story is written out in English words but in ASL structures with pictures of the signs over each word. On the right is the story told in regular English. Until we looked at those, I hadn't ever given much thought to grammar and ASL. I suspect some of AJ's questions came from looking at those books and were reinforced by the Click Clack Moo video. I'll check out those websites too, Keri. Thanks! And Jeanette, I've been looking for an excuse to update my Chicago Manual of Style and now I have one. Thanks to you too!